Alphonse Island News – Week 28

Consistency is a funny thing; the wild is notoriously inconsistent in many respects and a guest of ours a few months ago said, “You know, there are two words that should never exist in any fisherman’s vocabulary; Always and Never…” This week however went on to push the envelope for consistently great fishing over the season.

The weather this week was slightly tricky with the South East monsoon wind starting to show itself a few weeks earlier than usual. This in no means hampered the fishing, and coincided well with one of our biggest tides of the season and made for some great clean and cold water moving through the atoll. The big spring tides this week were textbook surf walk and GT fishing tides and the week didn’t disappoint, with a good number of fish thrown at.

Philip Leech needs a special mention. After all our guests went across to St Francois Atoll early in the morning, Philip enjoyed a great breakfast and a relaxed start to what was supposed to be a classic first ever day of bone fishing on Alphonse. After ticking the bonefish box Philip managed to get his 8/0 Cosmo Critter in front of a big GT and fooled him to eat it. Once the tape was stretched from nose to fork it measured in at 100cm, a great fish and incredible on his first day on the flats.

David Hall didn’t fail to impress, finishing his week off with two good GTs, the largest being 94cm and he had a great moustache triggerfish too. Hena Power, joining us on the back of a Cosmo trip brought some of that mojo with him and also managed two good GTs and a ‘Trigger Slam’. Hena’s ‘Trigger Slam’ wasn’t to be the only one this week though, Kerry Hagan was right behind him with a ‘Trigger Slam’ of his own and another yellowmargin to top it off. Betty Grey worked really hard throughout the week, and finally she managed to get the job done and put her hands on her very own yellowmargin.

Often, the good tides – and a switch in wind direction – clean up the outside of the reef and this led a bunch of the guys to try their hand at popping or dredging. Bill Hegberg capped his week off with a gorgeous and impressive 118cm black GT on the fly popper outside the reef. Bill also went on to get a moustache triggerfish later on in the week.

Besides the GTs, the triggerfish and the bones, the one fish that always stands out has to be the indo-pacific permit and this week two people managed to join the prestigious permit club.

Every permit is as special as the last but these two also took Alphonse over the 50 fish mark for the season, which is spectacular as far as indo-pacific permit fishing goes. Sam Balderson, a Divemaster on Alphonse spent the week fishing with his father David and not only did he get his triggerfish badge but on the same day he went on to hook and land a beautiful and perfect indo-pacific permit – our 50th. Later in the week Peter Grey went on to make his mark with an equally gorgeous fish.

These fish mark a milestone in the increasing quality of the permit fishery and it’s a testament to our conservation efforts and to all our guests respecting the fishery.

Tight lines from the Alphonse Fishing Co. team.

More Stories
Lure Fishing with Robbie Northman #16